Darrell Davis: Goodbye, old house

For 10 years we’ve been trying to sell our father’s house.

Estate issues, legal issues and a bad real estate market have all conspired against us. We finally accepted an offer and we’re taking a financial bath, but it’s reached the point where my brother, sister and I decided we just can’t deal with this anymore. It’s where we grew up, where our mom packed us off to school and tucked us into bed, where our father tended the yard and displayed mini-Stanley Cups among the memorabilia illustrating his lifetime involvement in hockey.

The process has dragged on for so long that we’re all saying, “Let’s just get rid of it!” We bought a new furnace, contracted engineers to support the basement that occasionally flooded during our childhood and bemoaned the ugly ceiling cracks near the front door.

It’s basically drained us of our emotions and our memories. Or so I thought. Then I signed the form accepting an offer from the prospective buyers and started thinking back to family meals, our parents, playing shinny on the driveway, the old crabapple tree in the backyard…